


the buried truth

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d known he killed people, but this is something else entirely. This is <i>murder</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the buried truth

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the 100 ways to say I love you prompt: "you can borrow mine."
> 
> Also, this is _heavily_ inspired by the Burn Notice marathon I've been having recently. There are several references, and Coulson's quote is said - at least in spirit if not exactly - on the show at one point. So if anything seems familiar, that's why.

“I don’t have any clothes,” Jemma calls from inside the steamy bathroom. The ones she wore here are ruined - if it wasn’t the smoke from the fire in the lab, it would’ve been the dust or sea water from her kidnapping or the blood from suturing her kidnapper’s arm at gunpoint.

There’s a faint knock at the door and when it opens - the lock was disabled before she got here - a bundle of men’s clothing is shoved through the opening.

“You can borrow mine,” he says.

She kicks the door weakly with her heel as it closes. He had the foresight to find a furnished house to keep her in, but not to get her some decent clothing?

She’s practically swimming in the sweatpants and after her third attempt at rolling the cuffs, she gives up and tears them. It hurts her raw skin, and she holds onto that feeling. He’s not her friend. He must have a reason for grabbing her and it can’t be good.

Her fingers shake so badly she has to stop buttoning the shirt and grip the edge of the sink while she tries to calm down.

The others will find her. Ward wasn’t exactly subtle when he took her, and Coulson will be quick to respond. He’s been worried about something like this happening ever since news of Ward’s burn notice came down and has made preparations for every eventuality. She won’t be here for long. In the meantime she need only keep her head. Ward must need her for something - he could have killed her any time otherwise - so she only needs to fend him off until they’re discovered.

She finishes buttoning the shirt and then wipes at the mirror to get a better look at herself. She looks like a drowned rat with her finger-combed hair and too-big clothes. The shirt’s so big her breasts are invisible beneath it.

She lets out a slow breath and opens the door.

“Feeling better?” he asks. He’s leaning against the wall directly in front of the door, looking perfectly at ease to wait for her.

“No.” A shower is not nearly enough to make her feel better about being held hostage by a madman.

He smiles at the answer and her heart flips in her chest. She’s seen that smile a hundred times before.

“Come on.” He gestures for her to come out and lead the way back down the brightly lit hall to the front of the house.

She fights the urge to hug herself and instead fists her hands at her sides. His smile may be the same, but he isn’t the man who would so often drop in just to visit his SO and hang out with the odd assortment of characters populating their field office. It sickens her now to think that all his dry jokes, the easy way he had with Coulson, the smiles that warmed her to her toes - it was all a mask meant to hide the _evil_ underneath.

“Sit,” he orders as she comes into the kitchen.

She goes left to the breakfast nook, while he goes right to the kitchen counter. The smell of Cuban food doesn’t hit her until she sees the bag of take-out waiting there. Oh yes, he is most definitely evil.

“I knew you liked ropa vieja,” he says like an apology, which it _should_ be. He knows she likes it because she ordered it the last time she saw him. Trying to remind her of that night in the middle of all this is just low.

She twists on the bench, turning more fully into the table, and notices the thick folder sitting in the middle of it.

“You might want to look at that.”

The SHIELD eagle stares accusingly up at her. It’s a stamp, not a sticker, which means this folder is at least a decade old. The bold “LEVEL 9” stamped over it in bright red means she’s not even allowed in the same _room_ as it.

“I can’t,” she says weakly. And yet she can’t stop staring. At the stains, the wear and tear from frequent openings over a long career. At the files sticking out the edge. At the name printed on the top. _His_ name. “How did you get this?”

“I’m good at what I do.” He comes to join her with two steaming plates and plastic cutlery. She supposes it’s a sign of respect that he doesn’t trust her with the real thing. He nudges the folder closer to her as he takes his seat. “Take a look.”

She shakes her head. “I know what it says.” She’s proud of how little her voice wavers. The contents of this folder may not be for her eyes, but everyone has heard of the fall of the famous Grant Ward. When the things he’d done in secret finally came to light, news spread fast.

His jaw tightens and she can’t help a shudder. When he reaches across the table though, it isn’t to strike her. He throws the folder open and she screws her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to see what’s inside. Not because she knows the stories or because it’s above her clearance. He didn’t just kill people, he _slaughtered_ them. Some went comparatively fast - bleeding out from shrapnel wounds because an explosive was laced with a blood thinner is far quicker than being slowly cut apart over a period of weeks, but she doesn’t want to see the photographs of either.

He sighs heavily and she feels a thin stack of papers hit her arm. Tentatively, she opens her eyes. There are no pictures here, thank heavens. Still, she keeps her eyes carefully averted from the still-open folder to one side.

“This is the report on the last op they pinned on me,” he says.

She heard about this one too, of course. It was a bomb planted at a school. The news barely even registered with her when it first happened - just another tragedy on SHIELD’s radar - but weeks later, when it came out that _Ward_ had done it … Her skin crawls every time she thinks of it, every time she thinks of _him_.

“Why are you showing me this?” 

“Just look at it. I can wait.” He starts picking at his food and she reluctantly does as he asks.

There’s a great deal blacked out, but she already knows the story. She tries not to think about it in relation to the man sitting across from her. It’s easier if she doesn’t connect the analysis of how the bomb had to be planted and set off with the man who used to make her smile whenever he visited them, who made her laugh while he did the most extraordinary things between her thighs. She’d known he killed people, but this is something else entirely. This is _murder_.

She tosses the pages onto the table when she’s done. “You should’ve seen Coulson’s face the day he heard.” It’s easier to use Coulson’s feelings as weapon than it is to think of her own. “It nearly killed him.”

“You think so?” There’s an angry twist to his voice she’s never heard before and she braces herself for the threat against Coulson’s life that’s surely coming, but it never does. He taps the pages. “Look again.”

“If you think because you were once able to convince me to sleep with you that you’ll also be able to convince me of your innocence, you are sorely mistaken.”

He taps again.

She lets out a huff as she snatches the pages up. “It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”

He pulls the top of them down so she can see his smile. It’s a little unforgiving and sends another shiver down her spine. The stress and the smell of the food is making her nauseated. She shifts in her seat and presses a calming hand to her stomach.

She tries to focus on the words in front of her, but Ward’s finger is still curled around the top, distorting the page. It’s then that she notices he’s pointing directly to the date.

She must give some outward sign of recognition because he backs off. “January ninth,” he says. “So you see, I _do_ think ‘convincing’ you to sleep with me means I can _prove_ I’m innocent.”

She drops the papers like they’ve burned her. “No.”

“Oh come on,” he says, irritated. “I would’ve had to be on site that day to pull that job off, and at the time it was being set up, I was in your bed.”

She shakes her head. “Just because you didn’t do this, doesn’t mean you didn’t do all the rest. There are _dozens_ of other reports-”

“Half of those with the same profile as that attack. They pinned someone else’s crimes on me. I’m hoping a _lot_ of other someones because if this is all one guy?” He whistles.

She presses her other hand to her stomach as another wave of nausea hits her. _He_ is the man who did these things. That’s the only thing that makes sense. The alternative is too absurd to think about.

And yet she can’t stop thinking about it. She remembers Coulson’s words when the news first hit and everyone at the office was quick to deny it. _“A big part of a specialist’s job is to never_ officially _be anywhere. And so he could’ve been anywhere when these things were happening.”_

It was meant as way of reminding them that no one, not Coulson as Ward’s SO or John Garrett, his CO, could say exactly where Ward was when he was working, but now, knowing that Ward definitively wasn’t at the scene of one of these attacks, she can’t help but wonder just where anywhere was all those other times.

“Why am I here?” she asks shakily.

He replaces the papers in the folder and shuts it. “For that. It’s a loose thread in a very expertly woven tapestry.” The mocking in his voice hunches her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Jemma. I’m not trying to scare you here, but we needed to talk. You haven’t exactly been available lately.”

“Coulson’s kept everyone on alert since you went MIA.”

He laughs. “Coulson. Yeah.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Whoever did this to me, they needed access-”

“What you’re talking about would be a massive conspiracy-”

“Made up of _individuals_!” Some of the thunder goes out of his expression when he sees her paling. “Coulson was my SO. The only way this works is if he’s in on it.”

“Or he believes it.” Jemma catches her breath. She cannot _believe_ she’s going along with this madness.

“The point is, it’s a problem, you and me and that night.”

Slowly, a terrible coldness settles over her. “You think I’m part of it.”

Ward holds her gaze for a few seconds longer before shaking his head. “No. You’re a terrible liar. But I had to be sure.” He grabs the file and stands. “And, if you weren’t, I had to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“You’re my alibi for a very bloody murder that a lot of people are trying to pin on me. If that ever comes out, you’re in danger.”

She feels like the ground is tilting beneath her. She grips the edge of the bench until her fingers hurt.

“I can’t let this stand, Jem. I’m gonna track down whoever did this to me and find out why. There’s every chance that’s gonna blow back on you at some point.” He tips her chin up. She hadn’t realized he’d come around the table. “Watch your back, okay? And watch out for Coulson.”

His thumb hesitates along her jaw and his eyes go dark. Her skin buzzes with the memory of his touch. He steps back.

“In thirty minutes I’ll be making a nuisance of myself so SHIELD can show up and run me off. They’ll search the area and find you.” He pulls a pair of cuffs from his back pocket. “I suggest making use of those so no one starts to think I just let you go.”

He leaves her with a smile and walks out the door without once looking back.

When she hears a car drive off, she allows herself to breathe again.

“Okay,” she says, pressing a hand to her stomach, “it’s okay.”

It’s not, not at all. The good, honorable part of her says she needs to find a way to expose the false accusation, but there’s more at stake here than just Ward’s good name. He can’t ever use that night to prove his innocence and her mind is already spinning with what needs to be done to hide the truth of it. Credit card records, security footage, hotel records - all will have to be altered, and she doesn’t have much time.

When SHIELD recovers her, they’ll do a physical, and all the baggy shirts in the world won’t be enough to hide the ultimate proof of that night. She pockets the handcuffs and rushes out the door Ward used. She has half an hour before he brings SHIELD down on this neighborhood, that’s half an hour for her to get into the city and start covering their tracks.

 


End file.
